Experienced PC Live user moving to Mac and looking for advice on set up

I've acquired certain ways of working over the years and have a few stock plugins, techniques, etc... that I use on all projects. On my PC I used Win 7 64bit and Ableton 9 64 bit. All the common plug ins I use are available as 64 bit for PC but some are not there on the Mac, especially a lot of the freeware ones (like TALs which are so good).

My set up is based around Maschine, Reaktor, Massive, Sylenth1 and Arturia V Collection with some PSP plugins (with the exception of Sylenth all are 64 bit) and the TAL freeware plus odds and sods.

I don't use huge sample libraries and I'm not a Sampler or Kontakt user.

I tend not to freeze my VSTs in Ableton as I'm always tweaking.

The largest samples I use are rarely bigger than 16 bars 115bpm 24bit.

I've built up lots of custom racks and don't want to spend ages upgrading/altering them all if at all possible.

I'd like to swap projects between PC and Mac occasionally and don't want to spend ages porting all my old PC stuff over to the Mac (bad experiences of going 64 bit from 32 on the PC).

So the big questions:

1. For my style of working 64 or 32 bit? And if 64, is bit bridging worth it or do I try to find work arounds? I really don't want to purchase anymore gear.

2. Will using AU rather than VST hamper porting projects between PC and Mac?

3. I have a Roland UA 25 EX. Is this better than onboard Mac audio?

Huge thanks for this. I want to get it right before I start putting all the software on the Mac and feel a little out of my comfort zone. Every minute spent thinking about this now, I'm hoping, will buy me hours of music making later.

1 answer

Jbridge will help get those 32bit plug ins working with your 64bit DAW, and vice versa. Download the trial. If you like it support the maker. Its about $10 for the plugin. Works great on my MBP.

My MBP is the i7 Retina 256SSD 16gb ram. All I have to say is... Flawless. In all aspects. Installs, working in ableton, mixing with traktor, web surfing, hero video editing etc. My MBP has needed NOTHING to help keep it limber and moving along. My pc equivalent was given away to my niece to use for high school. It became laggy like most other pc's do after a few weeks/months of use.

2 years ago|
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